Sovera

I remember the first I did one of the Portal missions back on Live. I was rocking my Archery Blaster and come to a mission/arc where my character had killed all heroes and become ruler of the earth. I remember thinking, wait, what, with my little bow and arrows I went and killed superman?

Soloing the redside SFs has been interesting due to never having done it before. As usual it was done at +1x8 while leveling the Fire/Ice. Tarikoss was not too complicated. CoT are a pain as they always are. Legacy were a mild pain with plenty of debuffing and the bosses who increase their defense via the armors but not too terrible to deal with. The froggies were non entities with their bland fire and smash attacks and the easiest part. Neither Infernal nor the frog god were particularly challenging. Two deaths from CoT debuffing until I got BU slotted at 22 to deal with them. Silver Mantis had the annoyance of dealing with multiple Sorcerers all with Hurricane. Same old thing of being debuffed to hell and unable to hit back other than the brief BU window (and even then...). Things like that are the reason I always pick Focused Accuracy. The Sky Raiders and the Freaks weren't challenging. Sky Raiders -can- be a problem since they shoot a lot and that debuffs defense, but they are pretty fragile and fold easily. The first challenge surprisingly came from the Council with the vampyr stacking -ToHit and their negative damage tearing through my unslotted Plasma Shield. But Ice Patch to the rescue. Like a newbie I actually cleared the ship in the last mission instead of flying past, but it's all XP. The last part was just wandering around ignoring enemies while breaking the turrets until the boss spawned. This part took a while but the AV itself wasn't a problem. No deaths. Operative Renault started by the annoyance that was Barracuda trying to help but being squishy. After its death and having to start over I cleared the way first before freeing the NPC. The Family are not much of a problem which is fortunate since the new Singularities do a great job at preventing any kitting. Fortunately there were plenty of corners to break LoS and draw the mobs in to trounce them. Now needless to say Longbow can be more of a challenge since they pack so many different bosses and some combos can be really crippling. The last room in particular was a case of running, Ice Patch, BU, Burn, Freezing Touch, then run run run! Rinse and repeat as the kitting managed to agro more packs of mobs. The last mission was not a huge problem despite the two AVs being psi based. I fought the humanoid AV and ignored the adds letting them die during Burn, but for the Eye the constant ambushes with the stays-at-range bosses were definitely whittling me down faster than Healing Flames could keep up between the Eye's and the ranged bosses psi attacks. But I flew to the top of the Eye looking for a ledge where I could use Burn. I did not find it but since the ambushes could not reach me, I just finished killing the Eye without Burn. Despite ebing psi attacks just the Eye was unable to get through regen and Healing Flames. No deaths and reached level 40. Ice Mistral promises to be challenging with Carnival of Shadows, Devouring Earth, and Circle of Thorns/Tsoo, but I have Focused Accuracy now so tomorrow I'll report on how it went.

I actually already did. It starts in the first post of the Brunker topic in the signature. I remade the leveling build to be more new player friendly.

Self-rezes are for people who intend to die! Good show though 😄

*dusts the thread* After taking a break and returning a short while ago I decided to level something up. Started a Fire/MA on redside since it's content I haven't touched since Live other than the occasional SF. Well, redside is full of debuffing. I kept dying (though level 22 was perhaps a bit early to go x8). It was also a slow start to solo since I had no AoE until level 18 thus I went at x1 until then. After many deaths between Legacy and CoT debuffs while trying to solo Tarikoss I threw the toys out of the tram and logged off. Next day I dusted my trusty Fire/Ice build and started from scratch on redside. Well, the first thing was cranking the difficulty to x4 once I got Frost at level four. At 18 and after obtaining Burn I bumped it to x6. At 20 I started the Tarikoss SF and died twice thanks to not having slotted Build-Up which didn't let me punch through the Circle of Thorns low level BS, but the deaths were for a good cause since I reached 22, slotted BU, pushed the difficulty to x8, then started to terminate mages. No more deaths after the Foreman was saved, even with other Circle of Thorns missions since I had BU. Ice Patch was good to have as well, but not enough without BU to combat the -ToHit of the ghosts. To celebrate I spruced the original post and made a more comprehensive Fire/Ice post since it is going to be the build I would recommend for new players to try the game.

Welcome back to the fold, prodigal lost sheep. I would recommend a Fire/Ice Melee Tanker. I'll be re-making a post/guide about it since I feel it's the best starter character for a new player to get used to the game. You have a guide in my signature with lots of information that is useful including money making. Community is friendly and the forum people will walk over themselves trying to help or inform so don't hold back and when in doubt just ask for help. I would definitely not move into farming straight away because money is not hard to make and it would be sad to just lock yourself up in one map that is then repeated ad nauseum.

Dark/MA can go to 45% defense to Melee, Ranged and AoE which greatly boosts the sturdiness of the build on top of everything else. Once adding either Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear (but not both I think) it is another layer though it (usually) only works on minions (but we can change that). My usual advice is the usual: let your ATO do its work and slot less accounting for 13% to all resistances (or just 6.7% since Mids already accounts for one stack). Then account for another 5% from Barrier which is the usual choice. Now distribute those slots around since more resistances past 90% will do squat. Same for defense. 40% is enough, then Barrier adds another 5%. This advice doesn't count if wishing to go Ageless instead, but not much point in Ageless in a world where Recovery Serums exist. On top of that Dark Regen works as a ghetto endurance clickie with a Theft of Essence proc in it. So, for example, despite only showing 79% to all the things (sacrifices were made so not to Toxic but I don't feel there is enough Toxic in the game to be -that- worrying, and there is always Dark Regen) they will all go past 90% once a second ATO stack is up and Barrier has been used. Most of the time nothing is going to dent you in the first place as it needs to get past 40% defense -and- 80%-90% resists (even without Barrier). Barrier is mostly a panic button for you and your team. You if defense debuffs stack too fast, your team is they are being overwhelmed or you notice the Blaster is suicidal and is all Ageless/Clarion for maximal dakka. - Proc bombing Dark Regen is definitely something that can be done since it recharges pretty fast and the Theft of Essence (nearly always) ensures you get its cost back at the start of a fight. I would still dedicate a slot or two for the endurance cost but it still leaves three slots to proc bomb with. - The build is pretty CC heavy between stuns from Cobra, KD from Crane, more KDs from Dragon, then more stuns from Oppressive. - Cobra Strike stacks with Oppressive Gloom so you can stun bosses from the get go. Hidden bonus: complete attack chain before level 20. If not focused on pylons (because CAK takes a -res proc) then the difference between both is minimal. - FF proc in both Crane Kick and Dragon Tail ensure moar recharge. So the whole 'use Dark Regen as a proc bomb' is valid. Burn it ain't, but, MA has anemic AoE so any help is welcome. - Definitely level with Recovery Serums at hand.

I started a Brute previously because, y'know, change things a bit, and dammit, they are demi gods under level 14-15. Just pew pew and two shot enemies. But around 18-20 their damage falls back in line and I was jonesing for Burn (which on a Brute would be at level 26). So I started over. You put all prestige enhancements in Frost and watch all those procs go off. Then make sure to keep a row of greens, row of purples and etc for emergencies, but keep a row just to gobble inspirations as they drop and it's pretty similar to a Brute as damage ramps up the more enemies we fight 😄

Having taken a break and started playing again just recently I did what I do nowadays which is start a new character of a favored combo. So I started a Fire/Martial Arts, and then went redside since I barely touched it. Redside has a lot more debuffs flying around than blue so deaths kept happening (also, perhaps not crank up to x8 right at level 22, maybe?). But I kept looking at it and thinking how the deaths could all be placed at the feet of a lack of an early Build-up. Being able to burst down enemies, but also be able to overcome -tohit early level BS is primordial. So I dusted my all time favorite: Fire/Ice. And it is good. Ice Patch complements Fire Armor's squishyness and where I soloed at x1 until 18 with the Martial Arts (because no AoE until 18-20) I cranked up to x4 at level 4 because I had Frost. Early (level 16) BU allowed to smash through early BS and the burst of BU + Frost + Burn gives a Brute a run for their money for early level demi-god-ness.

For funsies I did a run with no gifts and no inf transfers. It was slower and more painful than the usual leveling, of course, but when I logged off I was level 44, I had 26 million and had bought several uniques. Just at a glance I see I had bought both 3% defense uniques, so 3-4 million each, the Miracle unique and Panaceia proc for 10 milll each and 3-4 for the other one, two Performance Shifter proc, so 3-4 mill each, the Shield Wall 5% res for 10 mill, -res Achilles about 2-3 mill, both the -slow and -KB in Fly about 2mill each. All the generic IOs combined probably a bit less than 2 mill. I still had 26 mill left and other than repeat the starter DFB I didn't repeat content. Of course that I bought no SOs. Why would anyone use those nowadays? To see them turn red after three levels? Heh.

Being shot by snipers is such a non thing. Yeah, sometimes one of them shoots me. Perhaps because I'm a tank but they take a small sliver of HP. But I doubt they are denting even a squishy's HP bar. But ignoring the EvM defense aspect (which seems more flavor than anything actually useful) the extra KB protection it gives solidifies things for Fire Armor/Dark Armor where even a pylon can no longer KB in the presence of even just one -KB IO. And EvM also increases the speed of Fly and of Hover. Permanently as long as toggled on. For missioning the extra speed boost is wonderful since Hover is so natively slow. And since Fly no longer detoggles Hover and just increases it speed while keeping Hover's pinpoint turn-on-a-dime I find I just toggle Fly on and off when I want speed in a mission where before I would use a jump pack to increase Hover's speed. The factual truth is that we are flying as fast now with Fly + EvM, permanently, as low as level 14 as we were with Fly + Afterburner (permanently, but unable to interact with anything) at level 50 (not even close to at level 14 since Fly used to be coded to be slow at such low levels), but then we now also get the new Afterburner pushing even faster, -still- at level 14!

The game is also very old. Of all close friends I had in WoW and who have even stopped playing WoW, not one played for more than a week. Most did not even try it. Some did try it, did log in, but didn't even play and did not log on the next day. And this is from people with whom I was good friends and who knew that if they played they would not be thrust into the an ocean of strangers, who had someone extolling the virtues of the game and verbally assuring them they would be taught how to navigate things. Not one. So perfect strangers used to all the bells and whistles? Pretty textures and graphics? CoH primes for the gameplay and the flexibility of the system and character creator. But it's outdated down to the mitts-for-hands.

EvM's defense turns off when in combat so don't look at it toggled on to not be disappointed 😜 As for Parasitic, Sure, I personally never felt it stopped a death from happening, but if you're into Combat Jumping + Super Jump you can replace EvM for Parasitic.

No, you have the FF procs turned on. And level 24 is Evasive maneuvers. Check you have the latest Mids.

Like I said, I cleaned the build (up above) so use that instead.

*dusts the thread* Your enthusiasm is appreciated as usual 😄 I've cleaned the build since it was so old so use that instead. Claws does not need Lightning Fences + Lightning Ball since it can run Follow-Up + Shockwave + Spin with no gaps.

Brutes are not particularly tanky if you intend to solo the 801. They are about as solid as a Scrapper and soloing the 801 series on a Scrapper, well, it can be done I'm sure but it's a place that demands maximum survival. On a team with buffs a Brute can be as good as a Tanker where (most) Tankers strive to be self sufficient which is laudable but makes buffs less needed unless specifically tailored for their armor's weakness. The 'problem' with the 801 series is that is it made to kill people. Simple. And some of it, like defense debuffing, pretty much has no answer if not picking the correct armor set. Rad Armor is top notch for content, but will be turned into a radioactive splatter once the defense debuffs start hitting. Shield is where it is at. If you are interested Linea has made posts on the Tanker forums about the characters that they use for soloing. I would say go for DM/Shield or Rad/Shield.

Sounds like 'two and a half hours later...' Because Earth paired with Controller never struck me as huge. Now, on Dominators...

As someone who did flipping (feeling dirty while doing it, but intent in paying for my sub with Auction House gold despite Blizz's efforts at making everything worthless (alas, Legion)) I can fully agree flippers add nothing to the economy. Grabbing what people posted a bit more cheap to sell faster (or because unaware) and then sell it again for 20% more is as useless to the economy as it gets. At least crafters (as our 'ebil marketer' above) will grab materials from those who farmed them but can't be arsed to turn them into their end product, then go through that menial grind and then ask for payment. Fortunately such here is a bit of a non entity. While it is no longer something like 30-40 miillion a day on one hour (half hour for a Tinpex, half an hour for an Hami raid), it is still about 22-23 mill to do the above nowadays. So we can always buy at least one purple a day on one hour play time. Or one purple every two days on half an hour a day playtime. In two weeks without pushing it a build is complete. And that's if we're not playing more. A single 'kill most' ITF will make around 10-15 million raw inf, and then the merits, and then whatever dropped, so nearly another purple.

Needs more damage then (I mean, I'm being obvious here). Perhaps you could post your build to see if improvements could be made? The easiest non build tinkering way to make it happen is carrying stacks of Envenomed Daggers. Personally on a Fire Tank I didn't find that encounter difficult, just slow. But Romulus at the very end was a bad case of whittling down with the healing Nictus undoing my work every few seconds. It took well over half an hour to kill him (mental note: next time kill healing nictus first).

You're absolutely right and I'm a bit ashamed of my righteous rage quittus post above. Spoiled child tantrum syndrome 100%. Because I had the character at level 22 and was running things at +1x8... which is fine on things like Clockwork or Council, or even Freaks. But redside is indeed crawling with debuffing.

I've been off playing other games for two months now. Decided to return, made a new character, decided to try red side for a change. Met Arachnos who kept me perma blinded and unable to retaliate while being slowly killed, met Shivans machine gunning defense debuffs, met Legacy machine gunning defense debuffs, fough Circle machine gunning defense debuffs. Died. A lot. Can't even escape since they also machine gun immobilizes which Burn is unable to cope. Logged off and went to play Last Epoch some more. o/

You come a bit late. There was a month(s) old period of testing and feedback where things got changed (Evasive Maneuvers started with an absurd 0.56 cost). You are perfectly entitled to your opinion and not liking the changes, but it's both late and a minority I fear. As others mentioned the changes were all positive. We now fly faster than before and straight up at level 4 if we want to, instead of flying super slowly at 4 until eventually flying at the maximum speed at level 50. Fly + Hover also got rid of Fly's annoying drift. Evasive Maneuvers added -more- knockback protection, and makes Hover go so much faster now that is very welcome and useful while in missions. On top of it Evasive Maneuvers is perfectly optional unlike Afterburner. Taking Flight but not Afterburner made Fly too slow to be of use as a travel power. Timed tests were done during the feedback period and pre-changes Flight + Afterburner did not turn to be superior to post-changes despite Afterburner having been turned into a clickie. Now I'm sure this is all nice and good but that it won't change your mind. You dislike it and that's your prerogative. P.S. You can have keybinds to turn off Hover and turn on Fly and viceversa with a single button.

Defense debuffs sucks the joy out of playing. When a mob is chain firing attacks that take defense down until the negatives it is a death sentence. And it's also counter-intuitive that *defense* debuffing hardly bothers *defense* armors, while *defense* debuffing will positively murder *resistance* armors. Somehow you'd think that defense armors would be fearful of their defense being stripped, but it's resistance armors sitting at 90% who are straight up murdered. At the very least it ought to stop at 0% and not go into the negatives.

I managed to have FE turn on for Axe and not for WM when I was comparing the numbers. Talk about a newbie mistake. Yeah, WM is more damage especially Clobber with almost a hundred points more. For AoE the FF proc in Whirlwind Axe works better though, but ultimately both have their T9 cone that can take it so it's more of an exemplaring thing.